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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22373035">Overlap</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/merulanoir/pseuds/merulanoir'>merulanoir</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>They Are Singing The Old Songs [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dishonored (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Ficlet, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 13:40:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,132</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22373035</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/merulanoir/pseuds/merulanoir</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Delilah was born a pawn, but now she’s got the throne. Fifteen years ago the assassin Daud could have warned you about her. If you’d bothered to ask.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Corvo Attano &amp; Daud</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>They Are Singing The Old Songs [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610503</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Overlap</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">

        <li>
          Translation into Русский available: 
            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25608460">Внахлёст</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenmusik/pseuds/Greenmusik">Greenmusik</a>
        </li>


    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is something I started to write and then abandoned. Now I just...sort of decided to finish it like this. Another take on the DH2 events, because the Outsider mentions Corvo could have asked Daud about Delilah. And a tiny bit of a past that could have been.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Later, Corvo isn’t sure how it happened. He remembers being on his way home, one summer evening. He always thought it must have been the Month of Harvest, because the smell of monkshood clung to the memory, always there when he was dragged back by nightmares.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He is walking, taking a shortcut through an alley close to the edge of the Batista District, and suddenly there is a rough hand covering his mouth as he is yanked back.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Stop squirmin’,” someone grunts. Corvo tries to kick and scratch, but he is small for his age, and skinny because the summer was hot and with his father dead they couldn’t afford enough food. The man gripping him reeks of whale oil and tobacco, and he holds Corvo against himself with little effort.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You’re comin’ with us.” Corvo tries to kick him again, fingers looking to purchase against the thick wrists, and the man squeezes. It cuts off air, and only when Corvo starts to fall limp does he ease off.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He knows children get snatched up, disappear without a trace. He just never thought he’d end up one of them. He keeps struggling, as the man drags him towards an abandoned warehouse, but it’s in vain; he is small and skinny, and because he no longer has a father no one has taught him how to fight.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Just when they reach the warehouse door, and when Corvo starts to truly lose hope, something happens. One moment the man is muttering to himself, trying to dig out a key, and then something hits him in the face. His grip loosens just enough for Corvo to wriggle free, but he is not fast enough; the man kicks him and sends him falling face down.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Corvo struggles to his feet, but he is not quick enough. The man grabs his arm. There is a bleeding wound on his cheek.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>An older boy steps out from behind a dumpster. His face his dirty, and his dark hair is shorn short. He is holding a broken bottle as he bares his teeth.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Let the kid go.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Or what?” the man spits. His grip grows so tight it hurts, and Corvo bites his lip to avoid crying out in pain. The older boy grins, but the expression reminds Corvo of a wild animal.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The boy lunges at the man, who is forced to let Corvo go. He whips out a knife, and in the time it takes Corvo to scramble off it is all over. He slams against the far wall of the alley, and can just force himself to turn around; his heart is galloping, hands shaking, and he just wants to run away.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He forces himself to look back, and something cold flows down his neck: the man is dead, the broken bottle sticking out from the carnage of his neck. The boy is lying down, breaths coming shallow and pained, and his face is split open. There’s so much blood, Corvo thinks, too much.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The boy doesn’t look any older than thirteen. He is trying to get back to his feet, but the wound of his face is bleeding so much. It looks like his right eye might be gone, and there are small pained sounds that escape his lips.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Paloma Attano almost faints when Corvo drags the boy home with him. She leans on the wall for a long while, vision swimming and only distantly hearing Corvo’s alarmed voice begging for Beatrici to go find a doctor. Paloma hears her daughter run off, and only then can she step away from the wall. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Corvo doesn’t let her touch himself. He insists on seeing to the foreign boy, babbling something about a kidnapper. Paloma presses her apron against the horrible wound cutting through the unknown boy’s face, and the blood soaks through by the time Beatrici is back with Mister Gull, the district physician.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mr Gull shoos them out of the room, and in the end only Corvo stays, because he refuses to leave; Beatrici starts to boil water as per Mr Gull’s instructions, and Paloma digs through her fabrics for bandages.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Corvo stays in the room as Mr Gull starts to stitch the wound. The man looks grim, and Corvo is thrown back to the evening when his father died; Mr Gull brought the news, and he didn’t lie. He told them Jonatas Attano was dead, that he had died in an accident that could have been prevented.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mr Gull never lies, and Corvo sees how little hope the man can spare for the boy’s life. Corvo blinks back tears and sits on the bed, just close enough to watch the boy’s face. Mr Gull injected him with something when he began stitching, and the boy looks like he is only half-aware of what is happening. He is alive, for now, so Corvo decides to place all of his hope on him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mr Gull works for a long time. At some point Beatrici comes in with hot water and bandages, and tries to get Corvo to clean up, but he refuses to move. He takes the hand of the boy who saved his life, and keeps watching him. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>It’s late at night when Mr Gull finally dresses the wound. There is a long line of stitches, starting from the boy’s forehead and marching across his face, all the way to the stubborn line of his jaw. He looks both younger and older as Mr Gull wraps the wound away, and finally Corvo allows his mother to pull him away. His head is swimming, and his mother cleans him before tucking him into bed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The next morning dawns grey and warm, the air pressure telling of thunder. Corvo wakes up with a start, and then runs to the room where the boy was left. He kneels down next to the guest bed, and one grey eye meets his worried stare. The boy looks feverish and like he is in horrible pain, and Corvo knows Mr Gull didn’t have any of the good medicines on hand. They’re poor, and wasting the potent medicine on a homeless child is just...not done.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Thanks,” Corvo finally whispers. He hesitates, because the boy is looking at him with a wary expression, but then brushes his hand down his arm. The boy flinches.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I’m gonna get you something for the pain,” Corvo says.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The boy tries to shake his head, but the pain makes him stop. He bites back a whimper, and Corvo leaves. His throat is hurting from where the man was crushing his windpipe, but it is nothing compared to how the boy is doing. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>He returns in the evening, knees scraped and head pounding from where he hit it against the doorframe when he ran away from the clinic; he is almost sure no one saw him well enough to recognize him, but all of that is forgotten when he sees the boy curled up on the bed. He is pale and feverish, and his eye is hazy with furious fear when Corvo pulls up the syringe with shaking hands. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“It might hurt,” he whispers, before stabbing the needle into the boy’s arm like he has watched Mr Gull do.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>After that there is nothing to be done but wait. Corvo sits down on the floor and leans his head against the bed frame, and gradually the boy calms down. The agonized twist leaves his face and he falls slack. Corvo watches him and tries to understand.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“What’s your name?” he asks when the thunder rolls in and the room grows dark. Beatrici is somewhere, she leaves home for longer and longer stretches of time nowadays. His mother is working late. Corvo is the only one who can see to the boy.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The boy doesn’t answer. He keeps staring at Corvo, just on the edge of falling asleep. He nods his head towards the box of medicine, raising an eyebrow.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Corvo huffs an embarrassed laugh. “Stole them.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A faint smile tugs at the uninjured side of the boy’s face. He closes his eye, and Corvo finds himself hoping against hope that Mr Gull managed to save the boy’s right eye. He will be scarred for the rest of his life, but if he lives, then Corvo can live too. Maybe Corvo can learn to fight like him, so he can in turn protect someone else.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“D-” the boy tries to whisper. He swallows, mouth working against the pull of the stitches. Corvo waits, wondering if the boy is trying to tell him his name, but nothing follows. Then the boy falls asleep.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>When Corvo wakes up the next morning, the storm has cleared away, and the bed next to him is empty. The medicine is gone.</em>
</p><p>***</p><p>The Void was exactly as Corvo remembered it; fathomless, dizzying, and at the same time, a relief. The escape from the Dunwall Tower had been haunting his dreams, and instead of Delilah and Emily, meeting the eyes of the Outsider made his shoulders slump in relief. Even if he had to listen to the god taunt him while looking barely out of his twenties.</p><p>
  <em>“Delilah was born a pawn, but now she’s got the throne. Fifteen years ago the assassin Daud could have warned you about her. If you’d bothered to ask.”</em>
</p><p>The dream warped and twisted. For a second Corvo wanted to reject the Mark, but the impulse was gone before he even truly considered it. He had perfected his fighting in the past years, and going into this mess without his powers was...unimaginable.</p><p>He woke up feeling well-rested for the first time since his escape. The Mark glimmered on the back of his hand, and Corvo spent a long time looking at it. The Outsider’s words floated back to him, and Corvo felt the Heart pulse, an eerie comfort that he never truly let go, even as the artefact had disappeared after Emily’s coronation. He had been more worried about losing the Heart than losing the Mark, if he was honest with himself now.</p><p>
  <em>Pushed out into the harsh world, you are alone, but for a few allies.</em>
</p><p>Corvo closed his eyes. He had Meagan, if that was her real name. If they managed to find Sokolov, the man could help them. </p><p>He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this alone.</p><p>Something nagged at him, but he couldn’t place it. He got up and wandered into the main space of the ship, where they have set up a base of sorts. Meagan greeted him with a tired grunt, and as the morning progressed Corvo listened to the Heart. He had missed Jessamine’s voice so much, and at first he lost the meaning behind her words as he sank into the cadence, but then…</p><p>
  <em>A man haunts her dreams. Like a father to her. A man with a scar. He hides himself, even from me.</em>
</p><p>Corvo almost choked on the bitter coffee. It was moments like this that he both despised and loved the Heart, because he didn’t believe in consequences. Things were always more complicated than they seemed, a tangled web of regrets and hidden motivations. </p><p>He had always been bad at seeing the threads connecting people and stories together. It was not his job, per se, but he delighted in watching Jessamine unravel those nets. Emily had inherited her mother’s sense of the unseen and unsaid, thank the Void. She was more brash than Jessamine, but had outranked Corvo in cunning for close to a decade now.</p><p>Corvo finished his coffee. They were going to Karnaca, and would make landfall in a few days if the weather held. He didn’t know what he was feeling when he thought of going back, because he hadn’t been back to Serkonos in decades. There was nothing waiting for him there.</p><p>He had so little to go on. He needed to unravel a whole conspiracy, and this time there were no mysterious Loyalists to point him in the right direction. All he had was Meagan and her dubious past, just starting to show through the mystery she had wrapped herself in.</p><p>The Dreadful Wale sailed on, and Corvo listened to the Heart as he thought.</p><p>***</p><p>It wasn’t much, but it was a life.</p><p>Daud closed the door and glanced around himself, but the street was empty. The evening was getting late, and the Waterfront was growing quiet. The Grand Guard had been harassing people more than usual this week, so no one was keen on lingering outdoors after nightfall. Daud shrugged his hood on and started towards the harbor, but something made him pause.</p><p>The street was empty. He blinked, but the void gaze revealed nothing. There was a shrine nearby, but Daud was accustomed to ignoring its humming call. He didn’t visit the shrines anymore, and he usually let any runes or bonecharms he encountered be. Maybe it was factitious, this so-called independence, but the songs in the bones made the nightmares return, and it was rarely worth the boon.</p><p>Daud resumed walking. He had nowhere to be tonight, but if he was truly planning on settling to this part of Karnaca, it’d do him no favors to ignore the nightly comings and goings of people. The Campo Seta dockyard was a quiet place, the last location Daud would have expected to land at after wandering for so many years, but he was growing tired. Any place was better than having nowhere to go, at this point.</p><p>The back of his neck tingled, and he actually spared a glance behind him. The alleyway was deserted, there was only a rat sniffing hopefully at an empty hagfish tin. Daud frowned. He briefly entertained the notion that he was finally growing senile with his paranoia, but he discarded the thought; the Mark kept him healthy for the most part, and Daud honestly suspected the Outsider would be interested in seeing one of his marked succumb to the dull wits of old age.</p><p>Daud completed a sweep of the harbor, where a few brash souls were drinking at what passed for a pub. The whale carcass that had been dumped on the shoreline was still there, Daud noted with a grimace. It had been baking in the Serkonian heat for close to a week now, and the reek was getting overwhelming. </p><p>Daud straightened up at his perch on top of the building, and was almost ready to blink away when it registered: there had been a rune stuck inside the whale’s mouth. Daud had heard its disjointed singing every night he had passed the harbor, steadfastly ignoring the call, but now it was gone.</p><p>Had a civilian braved the rotting whale and the death trap that was its maw, just to pluck out a heretical object? How would they even have thought to look there? Daud suppressed a shiver. The alternative options held very little appeal to him. He knew he wouldn’t be staying at the Waterfront, after all.</p><p>He completed his customary rounds of the district, but his mind was elsewhere. It refused to drop the mystery of the missing rune, and as Daud turned back towards the room he was renting, he finally admitted to himself; he was worried.</p><p>Too much weird shit had been happening. Daud had arrived to Serkonos fifteen months ago, and by now he was painfully familiar with the island’s political climate. Daud remembered old Theodanis Abele as a ruler no one truly had anything bad to say, but it had become evident his son was cut from different wood altogether.</p><p>Duke Luca Abele was almost childish in his manner of rule, and Daud had spent a long while wondering how the empress could justify extending her support. He had concluded that Emily Kaldwin was most likely kept in the dark about what was happening in the homeland of her father, but that had only given rise to a whole host of new questions. At that point, Daud had left Cullero and returned to Karnaca, only to witness that the sole humane mine baron Aramis Stilton had disappeared, and the former Batista District was quickly turning into a site of an all out gang war.</p><p>He had promised himself he wouldn’t interfere. Daud remembered promising that to someone else entirely, too. How had he put it? He would fade from the memory of everyone?</p><p>Daud stopped on the roof next to his house, an odd melancholy settling into his bones. He thrust his hands into his pockets and watched the glinting lights of the town around him, and tried to tell himself he had made the right decision.</p><p>Corvo Attano should have had no reasons for sparing Daud’s life. Yet he had done just that, and to this day Daud couldn’t tell if the man had thought this the crueler option. Daud had lingered in Dunwall for a few weeks, tying up loose ends and assuring Thomas that the Whalers were done, and he’d seen Attano take back the Dunwall Tower with what few loyal men and women he had.</p><p>Daud had left before Emily Kaldwin had been crowned, but in the following years he was just curious enough to read everything he found about the young empress and her Royal Protector. What had struck Daud was how alone the two of them were; Corvo Attano was clearly no diplomat or a politician, and Emily Kaldwin was a child of ten. Daud had spent literal years telling himself that he had no right to entertain the thoughts of seeking them out and offering his help.</p><p>And now the coup. The word had reached Serkonos less than a week ago, and as Daud had laid eyes on Delilah’s face once again, he’d felt a dizzying wave of helplessness. He’d fucked up. He should have killed Delilah when he had the chance. He should have found a way to tell Attano about her.</p><p>Daud had kept his silence about the witch when Corvo sought him out, and when Daud surprised himself by pleading for his life, the thought of mentioning the Brigmore witches never crossed his mind. Then, much later, Daud didn’t want to risk getting dragged back against his will. He never held a single doubt that Attano would hunt him down if he thought Daud was up to something.</p><p>So Daud had kept quiet for over a decade, and look where it got him.</p><p>He entered his rooms through a window. The bedroom was silent and dark, and Daud shrugged his coat off. It was overkill, the weather was too hot for a hood, but some anxiety made him wary of showing his face now. Ironic, he thought, because back in Dunwall Daud had rarely bothered with the whaler’s mask after starting to make a name for himself. He’d liked the idea that people knew his face, the sole human-like figure leading the group of ominous assassins. </p><p>Daud huffed a mirthless laugh. So much had changed, and yet he still felt almost the same as when he left Dunwall. His heart was heavy with regret that he didn’t know how to shake, and he was growing old alone.</p><p>Daud opened the door that led to the hallway connecting the bedroom to the small kitchen, and he made it all the way into the slightly lighter room before his brain caught up and understood someone was sitting at the table. In the split-second Daud saw only a dark silhouette, totally unmoving and silent, and his first thought was that the Outsider had come to tell him he had failed.</p><p>Then the intruder lifted his chin, and Daud’s breath caught inside his lungs, because it was not the Leviathan.</p><p>Corvo Attano rose to his feet slowly. He raised his hand and stripped off the skeletal mask Daud remembered so well. He shook off the hood he had been wearing, and then met Daud’s eyes.</p><p>“Growing careless?”</p><p>Corvo’s voice had not changed at all, Daud thought somewhere inside his shell-shocked brain. It was still rough, now there was just layer upon layer of weary hatred. His hair was short and Daud saw he was going grey. A dark shadow of a two-day stubble covered his jaw, and his eyes were simultaneously fiery and exhausted.</p><p>Daud thought about the news, how posters had been going up around Karnaca, and there was a distinct twist of sympathy inside his chest.</p><p>“What the fuck are you doing here?” Daud asked. He exhaled and leaned against the sink. Attano had not even unsheathed his blade, so he was unlikely to be here to finish his business.</p><p>“Surely you’ve heard the news. About Delilah.” The way Corvo pronounced the name was thick with that hatred, and Daud was surprised to conclude that Corvo must hate Delilah more than he’d ever hated Daud.</p><p>“I have. I meant here, in my kitchen. How did you even find me?” </p><p>Corvo shrugged. He sank back into the chair. “Wasn’t that hard. I’ve had people keeping an eye on your movements ever since you left Dunwall, and I just followed the latest rumors. You’re not even nearly as hard to find as you like to think.”</p><p>Daud frowned. He had not been as vigilant about remaining totally incognito in the past years, but the thought that the Lord Protector could have found him any time was...unsettling.</p><p>“I need your help.”</p><p>Daud blinked. He spent a few seconds staring at Corvo, convinced he’d somehow misheard, but the man stared back with furrowed brows and deep shadows around his eyes.</p><p>“My help?” Daud finally asked. He had a creeping suspicion he knew where this was going, and if it ended with his head rolling, well, it wasn’t anything he didn’t deserve.</p><p>“The Outsider,” Corvo said, quietly, “dragged me into the Void a few days ago. He told me you are familiar with Delilah Copperspoon.”</p><p>Daud rolled his eyes before he could prevent it. Fucking black-eyed bastard.</p><p>“Yeah,” he said. He rubbed his eyes. “The Outsider gave me her name fifteen years ago. I tracked her down, sealed her away in the Void. I thought she was done for.”</p><p>Corvo pinned him down with a hard gaze. “Tell me.”</p><p>Telling the story took much longer than Daud thought. Corvo didn’t ask a lot of questions, but the ones he did present led off in tangents, and it was close to two in the morning as Daud finished the tale. He had at some point sat down on the opposite side of the table from Corvo, and now there was a murmur of a headache starting at the back of his skull.</p><p>Corvo looked at his boots for a long while. His hair fell over his eyes, and Daud took the chance to truly look at him. </p><p>The Lord Protector was still lithe, and he looked deceptively average. Daud knew there was nothing average about the man whatsoever, but he had to admire the inconspicuous way Corvo carried himself. He had striking features, yet he was more likely to be lost in the crowd than to stand out.</p><p>“Why didn’t you kill her?” Corvo finally asked. His voice was quiet and flat.</p><p>Daud sighed. He had carefully omitted everything about his personal feelings and regrets, but explaining why he had done all he had was going to be like pulling teeth.</p><p>“I stopped killing. After— After all that happened.” Daud had thought he had come to terms with how much of a failure he was, but here and now the feeling rekindled like a wildfire; Corvo looked up with a sharp jerk, and their eyes met. Daud forced himself to hold his gaze, but his chest was hurting just like it had been after he had killed the empress.</p><p>He’d failed. He had started as a failure, and then made his way through life only to dig himself ever deeper. He thought he had managed to atone a little by dealing with Delilah, but his misguided wish for reform had blinded him. </p><p>Void, Daud thought. This is all my fault.</p><p>Corvo looked away and closed his eyes. Daud heard him take a deep breath.</p><p>“Delilah claimed she is Jessamine’s half-sister.”</p><p>It took Daud a moment to decipher the emotion behind Corvo’s words, but then it clicked; Corvo had not known of Delilah. If the witch was telling the truth, Jessamine Kaldwin had never told her Royal Protector and lover about having a bastard sister.</p><p>Daud didn’t want to think about what those thoughts might do to the man, so he shrugged and cleared his throat.</p><p>“I have no clue if that’s true. I just know Delilah is marked, just like us.”</p><p>“Yes,” Corvo nodded, eyes clearing and the angry glint returning. “She took my mark away.”</p><p>“She— what?” Daud blurted out. His shock must have been clearly visible, because something like amusement rippled across Corvo’s face. It was gone in a flash, and Corvo lifted his left hand. Daud saw it was wrapped in dark fabric.</p><p>“As I said, the Outsider sought me out again. He gave me back my mark, and told me about your history with Delilah.”</p><p>“Someday I’m going to find a way to shut that whale god’s mouth,” Daud sighed, without any real heat. He knew he owed Corvo, a thousand times over. “What do you wanna know?”</p><p>***</p><p>Daud left when the stone cracked and Emily Kaldwin blinked her eyes open. He knew Corvo would want a moment alone with his daughter. And the empress wouldn’t be happy to see Daud there.</p><p>Daud considered leaving Dunwall altogether, that same night. Billie’s ship was still anchored in the harbor, and Daud knew she would be waiting for a word. A lantern in the Tower window, or maybe Daud transversing to the deck and urging her to sail, as fast as she could, anywhere but here.</p><p>Instead Daud picked his way to the waterlock and sat down on the roof. He smoked and waited and thought about the past two months, and when the horizon started to blush pink and gold there was a sound of light feet behind him.</p><p>Corvo shook back his hood. He looked exhausted, now even more so when the unreality of Delilah’s painted world had been stripped away. Daud offered him the cigarette case without a word and Corvo picked one, equally quiet. They smoked and watched the encroaching day, shoulders brushing like so many times before.</p><p>“How’s she?”</p><p>Corvo rubbed his eyes. “Sleeping. For now.”</p><p>Daud nodded. Corvo turned to look at him. “Do you remember when we first met each other?”</p><p>Daud froze. </p><p>They had talked, during their time on the Dreadful Wale. Living in each others pockets on the ship wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. It had been like pulling teeth for both of them, but it had helped. Corvo had seemed to find some peace with knowing about Daud’s past and regrets. Daud had seen the full scope of what he’d ruined.</p><p>“The gazebo?” Daud rasped. He didn’t want to go back there, not in body or mind. He had enough nightmares as it was. In many of them he killed Corvo, too.</p><p>Corvo broke the tension with a tired laugh. Daud finally turned to stare at him.</p><p>“No. When we were young.” </p><p>Daud blinked. He couldn’t understand a thing.</p><p>Corvo smiled. Daud could count the genuine smiles the man had thrown in his direction on one hand (the first one had been when Daud had teared up at the sight of Billie with her arm and eye back, after coming back from Stilton’s manor.) This one was a little wistful.</p><p>“You don’t remember.”</p><p>Daud just shook his head. There was a dull ringing sound starting at the base of his skull.</p><p>Corvo flicked ash from his cigarillo and leaned back. “You saved me when I was just a kid. The man who tried to snatch me knifed you in the face.”</p><p>
  <em>Bright, bursting pain. Panic, dust, adrenaline making his fingers numb. And then soft, worn linens, and a boy with messy hair. Asking his name.</em>
</p><p>“It was you.” Daud’s voice gave up. He had to clear his throat a few times. “That kid was you.”</p><p>Corvo smiled, crooked and amused, like he always did when he was a few steps ahead of Daud. It was irritating and familiar. “Yeah. You left without saying goodbye. Or thanking me, for that matter.”</p><p>Daud barked a startled laugh. “Wasn’t thinking too clearly.”</p><p>Corvo sniggered as he reached into Daud’s pocket to steal another cigarillo. “You were completely out of your head. I spent years wondering whether you lost your eye.”</p><p>“Was a close call,” Daud admitted. “The medicine you stole for me kept me alive.”</p><p>“Thank you,” he added more quietly. It felt good to say it. Daud had spent decades wondering who the boy had been and why he had helped Daud.</p><p>“Thank you,” Corvo offered back. “I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t stepped in.”</p><p>Daud conceded the point with half a shrug. He rubbed the scar that had marred his face so long ago, and now it felt like something worthwhile; to think that he and Corvo had met already back then. How much had changed because Daud had decided to intervene, just to make sure this one scrawny kid wouldn’t have to lose everything like Daud had.</p><p>“Thank you,” Corvo said again. He was a solid weight where he leaned against Daud’s side. “For… I don’t even know. Being there.”</p><p>“Debts paid,” Daud sighed, but he knew what Corvo meant. He knew Corvo was talking about the endless nights and days spent spying and planning, arguing about approaches, sharing meagre supplies, braving bloodfly-infested apartments together, all of it. Corvo had sought Daud out for information, and somehow Daud had just...forgotten to leave. </p><p>The morning after the Conservatory job Daud had been brushing his teeth on the deck of the Dreadful Wale and realized Corvo had never asked him to come back with him. Corvo had never asked for Daud’s help beyond what he knew of Delilah, but Daud had tagged along anyway. And it had turned out that Corvo was an infuriating, stubborn asshole of a man; he and Daud worked very well together, as soon as they forgot about their egos, Billie had pointed out.</p><p>He was too old to lie to himself. Daud knew he would have never forgiven himself if he’d not come. Joining Corvo as he took down the coup and Duke Abele’s co-conspirators had been the only possible course of action.</p><p>“Debts,” Corvo echoed. He was smiling and looking at Daud with a raised eyebrow. It was a familiar expression by now.</p><p>I’ll let you save face, but I know you’re full of shit.</p><p>Daud shrugged and lit another cigarillo. The horizon promised rain.</p>
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